Stop me if you’ve heard these lies before

We do get a little bored sorting the lies from the untruths in Taxpayers’ Union media releases about the screen industry, but we also think it’s important (if sometimes repetitive) mahi.

If we were up to speed with our AI abilities, we could probably ask ChatGPT to stick it to the Taxpayers’ Union but, for now at least, we’ll take it on ourselves.

In fact, as the latest TU release about the screen industry was published on Monday morning, we’re a bit surprised we haven’t seen more industry responses to it by now. It does, after all, perpetuate lies about the SPR – which is currently delivering work to plenty of NZ cast and crew, especially in Auckland – and takes unwarranted pot-shots at one of our best and brightest.

Left unchallenged, some people might believe what the TU is saying, and that could be very bad news.

The TU release slamming incentives for the screen industry (headlined ‘Richlister Peter Jackson Should Refuse Corporate Welfare To Allow More Funding For Pharmac Instead‘) combines the Taxpayers’ Union longstanding position on funding for screen content, that it shouldn’t exist, with an attack on Peter Jackson who, lest we forget, has generated a considerable amount of taxable income (his own and others’) over various productions here for more than a quarter of a century.

We, personally, have no problem with someone believing that tax incentives for screen content shouldn’t exist. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion, even when they’re wrong. We do have a problem with people lying and presenting misinformation as truth to justify those opinions.

So, here we go.

The TU release opens with, “The Taxpayers’ Union congratulates Sir Peter Jackson on coming in at number 5 on this year’s NBR rich list and urges him to refuse any corporate welfare for his upcoming films so that the government can fund Pharmac instead.”

As an aside, just before we dip our toes into that little cesspool of misinformation … If we’re in the business of rankings, why did the TU decide to go after the fifth person on the list? By maths that even the TU could do, there are four spots above Sir Peter – and the holders of them all have more money. What about them? If it’s more money for drugs you’re after, why not shake down the Zuru Brothers? They have more than six times Sir Peter’s $3 billion. Sir Graeme Hart, in second, has more than four times Sir Peter’s pile.

As usual with the TU, it’s not the money, it’s the belief that people shouldn’t do anything the TU doesn’t like, regardless of the fiscal outcome. The lie is neatly buried, at the end of the sentence, “so that the government can fund Pharmac instead”.

It’s a good one, though, because it’s actually two lies for the price of one.

Firstly – government already funds Pharmac and screen production, so the truth is the government has decided there’s a way to do two things at once.

Film and Pharmac are not an either-or, so there’s no “instead” – however much the TU would like to pretend there was.

Secondly – money paid to productions through the SPR, which is what Peter Jackson’s projects claim, is cash positive. It puts money into the overall economy, money from which the tax take (1.01 alert) helps determine how much a government has to spend before it borrows money. An SPR dollar given to a production puts back into the economy somewhere between two bucks something and six bucks eleven cents, depending on which report you prefer. Either way, it’s a win.

As then Minister (now Speaker) Gerry Brownlee said over a decade ago, when lifting the rate of the Large Budget Screen Production Grant (as it was) from 15% to 20%: They give us a dollar, we give them 20 cents back. What’s hard to understand?

Apparently, any of it if you’re the TU.

The dollar, which wouldn’t come into NZ without the rebate, circulates around the NZ economy, generating tax revenue at each step of the way.

If a National politician can follow that logic and raise incentives as a result, what does that tell you about the ability of the TU to separate basic maths from ideological preference?

Put differently, without a rebate scheme government would be less able to give money to Pharmac (or anything else) unless it took it from elsewhere or borrowed more. We can, of course, argue about whether Pharmac should have more or less money than it does, or if it should spend it differently, but that’s not the point (at least until we get further down the TU release).

The TU release goes on (doesn’t it just).

“Taxpayer money should go towards medicine not movies.”

As already stated, it’s not an either-or. Next.

“Sir Peter’s films have already received hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate handouts thanks to the New Zealand taxpayer.”

Finally, a statement that’s true. But why does the TU care? Those hundreds of millions have brought many more millions into the country, generated taxable income, which generated tax, which can go to Pharmac … if the government so wishes.

“With a combined net worth with his wife of an estimated $3 billion, it is clear that Sir Peter has benefitted significantly from generous taxpayer support – it’s time he returned the favour.”

Yeah nah.

Sir Peter’s really benefitted significantly from a humongous amount of talent, decades of hard work and a decision to bat for New Zealand rather than just up sticks and move to LA. He’s been lucky in that he’s been able to dedicate his talent and decades of hard work to something that can pay handsomely if you’re very good at it, but he has certainly returned the favour.

Of the films he’s driven (as director and/or producer) how many has he taken offshore? One – The Lovely Bones.

He could have taken others, notably The Hobbit trilogy, which, at one stage, Warners was considering relocating to the UK. Doing that would have stopped hundreds of millions of dollars coming into the NZ economy from offshore, and would have cost many New Zealanders work, income, career-advancing experience and opportunities … and all without having a significant effect on Sir Peter’s own earnings from the production.

Also, it’s not just Sir Peter’s films.

Why did the original Avatar come here, without which the sequels wouldn’t have? According to James Cameron, because it could, and because it couldn’t go anywhere else because nobody else was capable of making it.

The investment Sir Peter (and others) made in Park Road Post and Weta Digital in particular made it possible for the original Avatar to be made as Cameron envisaged, and that was the only way it was going to get made. Park Road Post and Weta Digital’s work across the last two and a half decades, plus the deal to sell some of Weta Digital, have contributed a considerable part of that “estimated $3 billion” fortune the TU would like Sir Peter to surrender.

NZ has certainly benefitted from Sir Peter being here.

“While a good first step is refusing to take any further money, we encourage him to go further and return all of the taxpayer funding he has received so that the money can be used to increase the Pharmac budget to fund the life-saving medicines New Zealanders need.”

This is blaming an individual for not solving a problem they haven’t caused and that exists at a societal level. If the TU believes in individuals remedying the problems of government, and it believes the government incentives are the problem, why isn’t the TU pointing the finger at successive governments, asking the Ministers who approved those incentives to pay up for causing this problem? It’s not as if most our recent Prime Ministers haven’t got a few million squirreled away.

We could just as easily argue that – had it not chosen to reinstate tax relief on mortgages for investment properties – government could afford those “life-saving medicines”. That government has chosen to watch voters die rather than not help out people who can already afford more than one house isn’t Sir Peter’s fault.

“This gesture would hardly break the bank for Sir Peter but would go a long way to delivering more life-changing medicine to those battling illness.”

Another half-truth. It probably depends on your definition of break. Break like a leg, which can be fixed? Or break like a horse’s leg, which leads quickly to a bullet to the brain?

More importantly, what refusing incentives for future productions would do is ensure that none of Sir Peter’s projects going forward are made in NZ. The paymasters behind those productions – ‘Hollywood’, for want of a better term – wouldn’t allow it, and other countries’ governments can do basic maths and consider facts more important than ideology.

Plenty of those countries would happily provide incentive support to a production led by Sir Peter Jackson.

That would pour tens if not hundreds of millions into another country’s economy, and deliver work and income to another country’s individual and business taxpayers. It would deny people here the opportunity to work and earn income on the production, and deny income to NZ hoteliers and restaurateurs and vehicle hire companies and the many, many other rental and supply businesses that service large productions.

It would give tourists a reason to go somewhere else instead of coming to NZ to see where a film they loved was shot.

Ask any bar or cafe on Cuba Street if they want more LOTR films made in Wellington, and see how many say, “Nah, we’re much better off without all them film types coming in here and spending their money.”

Another win for NZ, brought to you by the TU.

“As an indication of what this money could do, the amount of money spent on film and gaming subsidies each year is approximately $30 million more than what it would cost to fund 13 new cancer treatments in New Zealand.”

Don’t know, haven’t done the maths, but let’s be generous and say it’s true. However, as stated previously, it’s not an either-or situation and governments can do more than one thing at once. We don’t get only police for one year and then only teachers the following year, and maybe only nurses or some roads the year after that. Governments deliver them all, all the time, funded to different extents depending on the priorities of the government of the day. It may be news to the TU, but there really are people out there who can walk and chew gum at the same time.

“Obviously funding decisions should be made by Pharmac, but it should be clear to all what is a better use of limited taxpayer funding – we hope Sir Peter Jackson agrees.”

They do love their binaries, don’t they? How noughties is that!

We don’t know Sir Peter personally, but we’d be willing to take a punt that he’s not someone who’d deny people “life-saving medicines”. Morally speaking, that places him several rungs higher up the ladder than any MP who voted for this year’s Budget.

Sir Peter didn’t rack up that estimated $3 billion by not being able to count. Given the length of some of his films, he can count pretty high and in triplicate. So we’re pretty confident he understands that, by his making something here with overseas money and NZ incentive support, and by generating work, income and tax take in NZ, government can afford to provide more people with more medicines.

But don’t just take our word for it.

The recently-released Olsberg-SPI report for the Association of Film Commissioners International, Best Practice in Screen Sector Development, explains how incentives work and who benefits from them – and, for the hard of understanding, it has pictures too.

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